“I Don’t Know Who I Am, Papa”

A week ago, I asked Robert a question—probably after he repeated some schoolyard curse word and I got irritated:

“Is that who you are?”

And he looked at me, more graciously than I deserved, and said:

“I don’t know, Papa. I don’t know who I am.”

That hit me hard.

Because honestly—how the hell is a 7-year-old supposed to know who he is? I immediately backed off the pressure I was putting on him and said, “You’re right, buddy. Figuring out who you are is hard, and it takes time. I’m here for you, and I’ll help you through it.”

That’s a big promise. So I’ve been sitting with it: How do I actually help him figure out who he is?

And how do I do that when I don’t always know who I am either?

Bo is a bit of an old soul, and he’s cerebral too - a bit like me. Which is to say he want to be a good man, I see this in him so clearly already. But he needs guidance more than a mandate, just like I did.

What I realized this week is that one of the most powerful tools we have as parents—maybe the most important one for shaping character and identity—is to make choices visible.

Character Is a Trail of Choices

In my teens, I used to think character was something you built through lessons, lectures, maybe even discipline. But with the hard earned wisdom of experience, I see it’s just as much revealed as it is shaped:

Character is just the pattern that emerges when we examine our choices. Since most of our choices in our lives are small ones, we mostly build character in small moments.

Small things—how we react to bad news, how we respond to a sibling’s fart, what we say when we first see our kids and wives in the morning—these are the data points. That’s who we are.

We can say we’re one thing, but the truth is in the choices. Are we calm or reactive? Kind or sharp? Curious or dismissive?

The data doesn’t lie.

What I Learned: Stop Critiquing. Start Surfacing Choices.

Before this clicked for me, my default parenting move was critique. I’d say things like:

• “Don’t play basketball on the stairs.”

• “Don’t walk around with your privates hanging out of your pants.”

• “Don’t talk to your mom like a pterodactyl.”

Sometimes it worked. Mostly, it didn’t do much. And I realized—it wasn’t helping my kids grow. It was just conditioning them to wait for external correction. And even if I wanted to, I won’t be there to boss them around forever, at some point I’ll be gone.

They need to learn how to make choices on their own.

So today, when they’re veering off-track, I did my best to hold off on critique. I started with a question instead:

“What are your options?”

Where else can you play ball that isn’t the stairs?

What other options do you have for how to wear pants?

How else could you tell mommy you’re upset?

This question does something powerful. It interrupts the reflex. It reminds them that they don’t have to just bounce from one triggered reaction to the next. They have agency. They can choose.

And so can we.

And sure, I also laid down the law today a few times too, like when our older two kids were cutting cardboard and left scissors on the floor. Those had to be put away now, no questions asked.

But most moments aren’t like that. In most moments there’s time to push pause by asking “what were your options?”

Kids Will Choose Well—If They Can See Their Choices

I don’t believe kids want to be little tyrants. They don’t want to hurt others or disappoint themselves. Neither do adults, by the way. But they often don’t see the options clearly—because emotional reactivity blocks the view.

This is why asking “What are your options?” is such a powerful move. It puts them in the driver’s seat. It lets them choose who they’re becoming.

And over time, those little choices start forming a shape. That shape is character. And when they look back at that pattern and that shape they can start to know who they are, and perhaps even who they want to become.

The Takeaway for Me (and Maybe for You)

This week, I learned something simple but profound:

Our job as parents isn’t to define who our kids are. It’s to help them see the choices that define them.

We don’t need to hand them a script for every right move. We just need to help them slow down, notice the moment, and see that they have a choice. Because that’s where agency begins. That’s where character starts to take shape.

And if we can do that—even imperfectly, even once in a while—I believe they’ll grow into strong, kind, thoughtful people.

People who know who they are.

People we’re proud of.

And more importantly, people they’re proud to become.